The all too talked about problem, the issue that almost all of us have experienced, the problem that has desperately needed to be fixed for as long as we can remember: the parking lot.
The parking lot has been a problem at this school forever, and there have yet to be any changes made to fix it. There has to be a way to make it better and yet, no one seems to have come up with a solution. However, there is one person who is very focused on getting the parking lot changed. Athina Lazaridis, the mythology teacher at AHS, has a plan to fix the parking lot.
“I think what causes part of the issues is students walking through the parking lot and not allowing traffic to flow the way it should. The other one is that parents don’t know how to drop off their kids, ” Lazaridis said.
The first issue she brings up is that the student pedestrians don’t drive and must walk through the parking lot. Lazaridis has some ideas on what changes can be made.
“Now [the plan] would be that students use the sidewalk on the side of the [Fine Arts Building] and the sidewalk next to the pool as the main way of walking, and not walking through the lot. Moving the crosswalk would open up a lot of traffic flow for the students especially when you’re leaving school. It’s simple and easy to fix. We’re talking about painting and putting up signs,” Lazaridis said.
In the interview with Lazaridis, she said she had the idea that the school has had a lot recently a lack of meaningful changes by the administration leaving the teachers and students to do all the work the administration should do for us, like with the Go Greens recycling project.
Laz also said, “I think that the administration should do this. I don’t think that students need to be out there doing it. I think that if they had done this from day one they just had some signs and cones. Just a few administrators out there in the morning, actually watching then that would be enough for them to follow the directions.”
Junior Paul Vandenbrandon also had some words to say on the subject from a student’s perspective.
“I think that there’s so much pedestrian traffic,” he said.
He agrees with Lazaridis’s plan in almost every way.
“I think it’s a necessary plan that really just improves school because I feel a lot of stress from school just comes from like, running to my car once class ends and trying to get out of there, and not waiting 20 minutes just sitting in the parking lot not moving at all,” Vandenbrandon said.
All these quotes are just claims, so as a way to test if it’s possible to change the way the parking lot works. For more information and an update check out thepepperbox.com later this year.
